I can chat about accessibility for an age, its become a bit of a passion. This passion was fanned just before Christmas when I met up with a web accessibility tester who was blind. This was a by chance meeting over a drink at an induction type thing in london. It was fascinating chatting to a person who experiences every day the problems that I knew existed, but could never imagine how they coped. From this brief chat it became clear that some people are still too fascinated by javascript without knowing how people with disabilities suffer as a result.

I admit, in the past, I built apps which were over reliant on javascript. If you used a screen reader or god forbid disabled javascript you were doomed. I have changed, learned more and realise the error of my javascript ways. As a result here are the rules I live by when making an app which might involve ajax.

• Never build an app were javascript is required to do most tasks
• If you can’t build your app without resorting to javascript. Read more as you are probably wrong.
• Ajax can be awesome, if you do use it, use it unobtrusively
• Only use ajaxy wizzy effects to give real feedback to the user. Not because it looks pretty
• Never ever try and excuse yourself by saying “well netvibes.com doesn’t work without javascript”
• If you can get stuff accessibility tested, as you Andy don’t have a disability and don’t know what its like
• Remember, flash fades and wizzy effects have to be accessible. Lets not make the new blink tag